Cheap access to space - again (was: Audacious Tactics)

> Is there really any hope for low cost to orbit without using nuclear power
> or ground based launchers (like mass driver/spacegun and laser launch)? My
> impression was that orbit is expensive not because of NASA but because
> chemical rockets out of Earth's gravity well just suck.

I would love to see nuclear power being used - an Orion-type ship taking off
from the sea should be a beautiful sight (if you are not caught by the
tsunami :-). Or perhaps a nuclear canon - build a capsule filled with
respiratory liquid, put some crazy enough people inside, drop it in a hole
kilometers deep and nuke-shot it to space at escape velocity. (I have some
hope that the respiratory liquid would counteract acceleration - after all,
rat fetuses can withstand 1000gs when in water -
http://www.angelfire.com/my/theory/g.html. ) Unfortunately, nukes are not a
very popular option nowadays - unless you really don't *care* about whether
an option is popular or not, and that brings China to the scene again.

As for chemical rockets, maybe that argument favoring BDBs is right and all
that we need is economics of scale.

And what about the space elevator? I think that it is too a kind of "ground
launcher", as you say, in a way...

Lucio